At last! Honky Tonkitis is back! And this time we're at the Bay again! It's been MONTHS since we've been in the Bay, but they've finally decided to have us return! This is a great venue for sharing an intimate night of drinking with your fave band of drinking tunes. It's mellow, like a fine beer. And they've got Lone Star in the bottle! Make a date of it!

Honky Tonkitis spent the month of December prepping some new tunes for our shows. These include the following:

Honky Tonk Pain

Why Don't You Go Love Yourself

One More Chance

Just Think of Him

Osceola

I Need It Now

I Saw My Baby Turn Around

Most of these are still open to being dropped, but we had the good sense to record them all on phones so that we can remember them from practice to practice. Although the sound is pretty low tech, we're considering sharing some of them on our Facebook page, since the performances (though sometimes rough) still have a lot of personality. Yep that's right, they're the ugly songs with a lot of personality that no guys really want to date. Anyway, like us on Facebook and you may get a sneak peek at some of our newest tunes.

Some of these tunes may even make it to our setlist as early as our next January show. Who knows?

A number of these tunes will probably end up in our next recording session, which we hope to schedule sometime later in January, as long as the roads are passable and the cars don't freeze. Hell, what else can you do in Wisconsin in January other than drink and record?

For those of you that missed our November show at O'Lydia's in Milwaukee: You lose, suckers!

It turned out to be the triumphant return of Chris Conrad on guitar for ONE NIGHT ONLY!

See what happens when you skip a show?

If only the band had known that the promise of money and booze would bring Chris back. It was great to have him play with us, albeit for just one show. We will continue to beg him back when Bruce Dean is unavailable.

Saturday, November 29th, 2014

For those of you who saw our show with MadPoleCats on the 25th: Lucky!

For those of you who skipped our show with MadPoleCats on the 25th: Bummer!

As always, our shows with the MadPoleCats are always something special. Lots of heckling back and forth, great music, and a chance to see members of both bands sit in with the other group. This time around, MPC's fiddle player, Angela, sat in with us on Orange Blossom Special, while our own Don Turner sat in on accordion with the MPC's for What Made Milwaukee Famous.

Now we bet you're sorry you missed it!

Keep an eye out for future shows by the MadPoleCats as well as an upcoming CD release. These guys are great!

It's been a while, but we're still here. Lots of crazy changes in our lives, but the band is still going, so don't freak out too much.

We've got some Good News and Bad News to report:

Bad News: We won't be playing this Sunday, Oct. 5th at Kochanski's. Babe Miller's band pulled out at the last minute.

Good News: We'll be back at Kochanski's on Saturday, Oct. 25th with Madison's fantastic MadPoleCats!

We've played a bunch of times with these guys and fans of both bands are treated to a real delight. For this coming show, we plan to trade places. Instead of the MadPoleCats being dressed up in black vests and drunk and playing RastaCore, they'll be wearing colorful suits and drunk and playing honky tonk. We'll just be there drunk. It should be an enjoyable fight.

Honky Tonkitis had a practice last week dedicated to new songs that we could possibly record for our next album. Lots of tunes to and twist and mess around with and demo record. It turned out to be quite a productive session! Lots of songs that we weren't sure would come to anything came out quite well! Lots of focus on giving these tunes a different twist or musical feel than the original material we have so far. Look for these songs at future shows:

Why You Looking At Me?-A tune about a guy who gets grief for his decisions from only one thing: the mirror.

I Must Be A Clown-About all those guys you meet in bars who could be or should be wearing circus make-up.

Hangover-If a hangover was your buddy, would you really want him around? Ever? A great little cajun tune.

Fill It Up-Is the glass half empty or half full? Who cares! Fill it up!

I'm Living Hamms to Mouth-Haven't we ever gotten to the point where we're so poor we can only afford Hamms beer? Hell, that's half our audience!

Just Think of Him-A real tear in your beer slow tune. "When you love me, just think of him." Damn! Some of you who have seen us a long time (like when we had Deadeye Dan on pedal steel. Yep, THAT long ago!) may remember this tune.

We're looking forward to polishing these songs up and playing them live. We want to get really comfortable with all of our new tunes before we record them for our next album. It will also help sort out those that don't make the cut.

As members of an internet product called Radio Airplay, Honky Tonkitis gets to have selected songs of ours' streamed for free to internet music listeners. Kinda like Pandora, except we get paid nothing. Which is almost like Pandora, where we get paid next to nothing. (Boohoo!)

Anyway, as members of Radio Airplay, we define our style of music and can even recommend the types of music we should be mixed with. So you figure, "hey, let's mix Honky Tonkitis in with songs from artists like Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, etc." Which is what happens.

But every now and then they mix us in with much more current artists.

Which leads to our great mirth when we've discovered that they've mixed our song, Johnny Cash Would Kick Your Ass onto playlists for people who like Kenny Chesney.

Do you think anyone listening to the Kenny Chesney station ever picks up on the irony?

Weird news for today: Honky Tonkitis has an account with CD Baby that collects and sends us our international royalties. Know a weird place we've been heard? UK TV! For some reason, they were playing our tune, Pour Me, from our You Drink and Drive Me Crazy CD on TV! We imagine it was the theme song for some show called, "Britain's Biggest Drinkers and Losers."

Fiddle player Larry Gääärd of local band Honky Tonkitis announced Tuesday that he will be taking a leave of absence from the band after being hired to play fiddle for a national tour.

"I'm really excited about this tour, although I'm still a little shaky. I hope everything goes all right. And I'm grateful to Honky Tonkitis for giving me the time off to follow my dream."

Gääärd will be playing fiddle for a tour featuring artists Dave Matthews, Michael McDonald, and Shane MacGowan.

"When I was offered to play fiddle behind the likes of Dave and the singers of the Doobie Brothers and the Pogues, I was like, 'who wouldn't?'" Gääärd enthused.

Although thrilled to be part of the tour, Gääärd confessed he has some misgivings.

"Every so often, as we're practicing in sound check, Dave Matthews will point at me and say something. I dunno, it all just sounds like, 'bing bing bong, ging gong, bak bing bing.' I asked him to repeat himself the first couple times, but he just started getting mad, so I just nodded like I understood. I figured I could maybe better understand his speech style if I went back and listened to his recordings, but they're just the same! I can't understand a freaking thing he's singing!"

Gääärd hoped things would improve for the Michael McDonald rehearsals.

"I was stressed out about the whole Dave Matthews thing and thought I could take the pressure off by joking about it with Michael and his band, but McDonald got kinda serious and was like, 'Wha ae ou alin abou? I unesta eveehin Da Mhhew si!' I thought, did this guy just have root canal surgery? Is this guy using any consonants when he talks? I just nodded my head a couple times and stopped talking."

Gääärd found less to be happy about after that.

“As soon as I heard Shane MacGowan talk, I knew I was really in trouble. I asked a couple other guys in the band what he was saying, but they all just looked at me like I was being a jerk or something. Personally, I think they don’t have a clue either and they were hoping I’d know. So now, when Shane points at me and says something, I just play louder. So far, it’s worked all right.”

Gääärd plans to perform with the “Words” tour through September and has booked himself into a sanitarium for the month of October.

The Matthews/McDonald/MacGowan tour plans to bring new challenges to Larry Gääärd’s cognitive skills.

About a year ago, the album Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics was released. Here's the summary from Amazon:

2013 collection of unreleased tracks from the late Country great. Given the opportunity to record a large group of songs that reached far beyond his own best-known works, Buck enjoyed the rare chance to stretch out and have fun performing the hits of other Country singers. Over the course of this collection, pulled from the vast trove of material Buck recorded for Hee Haw, Owens provides us with a concise tutorial on the history of country music. Many of the songs Buck recorded for Hee Haw were originally recorded by some of Buck's biggest and earliest influences like Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, Hank Williams, Jack Guthrie and Hank Snow amongst others. The CD's title track, 'Honky Tonk Man,' is a song first popularized by Johnny Horton in 1956. Thirty years later, it became an even bigger hit for Dwight Yoakam (about a decade after Buck had recorded the song for Hee Haw).

This is a great collection that we highly recommend. Here's the opening track:

Local band Honky Tonkitis announced Friday that it will roll out a new Crowdfunding Project next week.

“We’re totally excited about this,” said lead singer Johnny Maplewood. “This is our baby, and we couldn’t be prouder. I hope our fans get behind us on this.”

Maplewood explained that with the intellectual support of the band, he had made strong steps into building a working time machine.

“We know that this has nothing to with the creation of music, y’know, like that new CD we’ve been promising to put out for the last two years,” drummer Kurt Weber elaborated, “but in a way, this is kinda more exciting.”

Band members went on to clarify that initial tests at sending an object back in time were successful.

“We were looking for something worthless that we could send fifty years into the past without getting too damaged,” accordionist Don Turner remarked. “I remembered that I had a Miller Lite in the bottom of my fridge that I wasn’t drinking, so we sent that back. Sure enough, we dug it up from my yard this morning where we’d sent it. I popped the top and it tasted just as bad as a Miller Lite you’d buy today.”

The group hopes that with proper funding they’ll be able to achieve their ultimate goal of sending a person back through time.

“We’re just not sure whether a human being could actually survive the time travel process and Lord knows we have no way of bringing them back,” guitarist Bruce Dean explained, “which is why we’ve decided to send back Larry Gääärd, our fiddle player.”

“I’m proud to go!” Gääärd beamed, “just don’t put me as deep in the ground as you did the can of beer.”

“The initial success of this device has brought forth all sorts of possibilities about how we could influence the past for the better,” Maplewood discussed. “Think about the important changes we could make to history! Prevent Hitler’s rise to power. Stop Oswald. Save MLK’s life. The possibilities are endless!”

The band went silent as they pondered the impact they could have on the past, present and future.

“We discussed it at length,” Maplewood continued, “and we’ve agreed that the most important thing we could do for humanity is to send Gääärd back to manage the musical career of the Eagles. With them out of the picture, not only do you stop that horror, you also erase modern country, and most likely, Kid Rock as well.”

Honk Tonkitis wants to thank the entire Windy City Thunderbolts and all the crew at Standard Bank Stadium for treating us like kings yesterday! From helping guide us into the stadium before the game to providing us a great performance location in their Beer Garden with Thunderbolts fans cheering us on, to giving us great suite with food and drinks afterwards, we couldn't have been treated better! In return, we gave our all in performance before the game.

We do apologize for Larry knocking out the catcher with the opening pitch. Kidding!

Local honky tonk band, Honky Tonkitis, announced Monday that they were suspending guitarist Bruce Dean for one show, along with fining him $50.

"Unfortunately, at our last show, Bruce seriously violated band rules," singer Johnny Maplewood explained. "At the time, I threw down the red flag on the violation, explained to Bruce what rule he had broken, and had our fiddle player, Larry, note it in the official log book."

"Because you never break any band rules," Dean retorted.

"We always feel bad when these kind of things happen," drummer Kurt Weber admitted. "But we have to police ourselves, or else it would be complete anarchy on stage."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I see you spinning your drumsticks during a break in the song, Mr. Rock Drummer," Dean spit back.

Band members explained that the violation occurred when guitarist Dean, in a high-spirited moment during a drum build-up was clearly heard to say, "Everybody put your arms in the air! Wave 'em like you just don't care!"

"Honestly, we do care," fiddle player Larry Gaaard commented. "We care about our reputation as a serious honky tonk band. Yelling out a foolish 1980's dance instruction is only going to cheapen the spirit of the performance and cause someone to get poked in the eye. Therefore, the flag was thrown."

"Yeah, but when Maplewood screams for the crowd to pump their fists, that's okay. Jeez what a bunch of hypocrites," Dean argued.

"We all feel bad that it happened, but we have to maintain our musical and entertainment standards. It's central to this band," accordionist Don Turner explained.

"I'll remember that the next time you lead the crowd in a round of the Chicken Dance, ya blowhard," Dean shot back.

No confirmation could be made whether the audience did indeed wave their arms like they just didn't care. Dean is appealing the suspension and fine.

One of the key topics of honky tonk music is, of course, drinking. It's the key substitute for love, which is country music's (and most other music's) key topic. This is what makes it honky tonk. Heartbreak, drinking, jealousy, divorce. All pretty much negative concepts that are usually twisted into being positive factors in the music. That's why we love honky tonk. No other music like it. Okay, maybe polka.

The boys in the band got together for a practice last night (finally!). We worked on a bunch of new tunes, insulted each other constantly, and decided that these two guys need to be asked to join the band:

Even if it means dumping Don and Kurt, we're willing to do it. Stay tuned for our progress in attaining visas and plane tickets for them.

We've been remiss in not giving more love here to Dwight Yoakam, one of the consistent honky tonkers in this generation. No need to explain his background, since he's also one of the most successful honky tonkers alive. But we do have to give him

Bill Phillips has a great honky tonk voice and many great tunes. He's one of those many honky tonk artists that you barely hear about today but happens to have a large amount of work that you can dig up. The Outsider has one of the

Honky Tonk Angel Saturday, this week featuring Barbara Allen. We don't know much about her, but she's got a great voice on this tune, kind of a cross between the growl of early Patsy Cline recordings and a young Brenda Lee. Is it rockabilly or honky tonk? Supposedly, the

Faron's one of the best. Just listening to his singing and delivery inspires new songs. For a couple decades, his music and voice were unstoppable. One of the best honky tonkers in the business. And he was even better

Honky Tonkitis accordionist, Don Turner, announced Thursday that he has signed a long-term contract with Paul McCartney. In a surprising move, McCartney personally attended the contract signing alongside Turner and his now-former band.

Honky Tonk Angel Saturday! Kay Adams may not be a honky tonk household name, but she should be, simply for her album Alcohol and Tears. Talk about an album this band modeled themselves after! Every single tune on it is described by the title. True honky tonk, ladies and

In stunning news coming out of Milwaukee, lead singer Johnny Maplewood of local honky tonk band Honky Tonkitis announced Thursday that he was immediately replacing the other members of his band with animatronic bears.

This is one of the most memorable songs from the show Lucky Tubb and the Modern Day Troubadours performed when they played last time they were at Kochanski's in Milwaukee. It's been bouncing around in our heads, and more than

In an effort to boost interest among younger people, Honky Tonkitis hired a team of popular teenage girls to review their honky tonk website. After much research and discussion, these girls concluded that the Honky Tonkitis website is not even funny.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to the show last Friday night at Kochanski's! The boys of Honky Tonkitis had an awesome time entertaining all of you. We met a lot of new people that we hope to see at future shows. Sarah Gayle Meech and her

Tonight's the night! Sarah Gayle Meech and her band are going to be trying to out-honky-tonk the boys of Honky Tonkitis. Take a look at the video below and you can see we've got the odds stacked against us! 9pm tonight at Kochanski's. See y

The Honky Tonkitis boys are stoked about playing this Friday night with Sarah Gayle Meech and her band. Why? Watch the vid below and you'll see! These guys are great players and an excellent match for us! You'll want to be there for this one!

Us Honky Tonkitis boys aren't the biggest fans of the tearjeerker two-step buckle polisher, but damn, Johnny Paycheck wrings this tune for all it's worth. What a voice. Second only to George Jones in the vocals dept? You be the judge.

If comments on YouTube are correct (and hey, when has YouTube ever let us down?), then Peggy Sue Wells is Loretta Lynn's sister: "the Webb family from famous Butcher Hollow consisted of 8 kids and 4 of them became recording artists with Decca Records in the '60s and '70s -- Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, Peggy Sue and Jay Lee Webb. All four of these Webb kids have recordings uploaded here on Youtube for our listening pleasure."

Yet another great performance by Sarah Gayle Meech and her band. Check out these players she's got with her. Damn, these guys can tear it up! Expect to see this caliber of musicianship when her band performs at Kochanski's with us on

As part of a family promotion, local band Honky Tonkitis has decided to add a few unique elements to their next show: fiddle player Larry Gääärd will deliver a presentation on safety with home cleaning supplies followed by wrestling a live alligator.

We went searching for a copy of Don Gibson's version of Gonna Give Myself a Party, but came up with only the mellow versions. Therefore, we'll stick with Sea of Heartbreak, another of Don's great tunes.

This Sunday, it's time for a sermon at the church of Honky Tonk! Clear your schedule and head down to Kochanski's in Milwaukee at 2pm for a great show. Honky Tonkitis will be there testifying along with

One more chance to get you to think about coming out to the Crunchy Frog in Green Bay to see us, the MadPoleCats and the Bastard Association tomorrow night (Staturday, April 26th). The MadPoleCats are just a great band to watch and

Randy King. The most we've been able to find out about him is that he lived and/or performed in the Denver area back in the day. Most efforts to track down old honky tonkers ends up pointing us at hockey players. Sometimes you just can't win. Great songs and performers should be able to

Honky Tonk Angel Saturday! This week we're featuring Rose Maddox, one of the great honky tonk singers, male or female. Rose did a bunch of duet work with Buck Owens and definitely provided a great counterbalance to Buck's voice and

A snippet of this song gets played in the movie Dallas Buyers Club just before Matthew McConaughey thinks about blowing his brains out. It made us perk up and try to identify it, but it's literally only played for about ten seconds. Well, here's the

Buck is one of those guys that embodies honky tonk. He's also one of a select few country artists who caused a sea change in the direction of country music, helping usher in the Bakersfield sound. While the Countrypolitan sound brought

Local accordionist, Don Turner, of the band Honky Tonkitis has spurred massive outrage across the nation. In a recent Teen Beat magazine interview he was quoted as saying that his honky tonk band was "now more popular than cheese and rice:"

Wow. We've been able to find out virtually nothing about the Martin Brothers or this song and we've been searching the internet for like, five minutes! Whatever the case, another great honky tonk tune to spend a

When you've had this tune running through your head all night, you might as well share it with everyone else. There's about thirty versions recorded of this tune. Here's one of the more distinctive ones by Hank Locklin. Hank definitely had

Yeehaw! We just got sent this vid yesterday. From our last show at Kochanski's. Angela from MadPoleCats came up to take on Larry in a fiddle duel. This is what happens when you go to a Honky Tonkitis show. Great stuff. If you squint just right you can see

You just gotta love those bitter, double-entendre songs that were classic honky tonk back in the day, delivered even all the better by such an honest and straight-forward voice. Liz Anderson sells this with the height of sarcasm. Man, that sarcasm just

The Honky Tonkitis boys had the pleasure this past weekend of not only playing with the MadPoleCats, but also their special guest, Nevada Newman, formerly of Asylum Street Spankers. In one of our smarter life moves, we swapped Nevada a copy of Alcohol & Heartbreak for his awesome CD, Why Do It Right? Turns out this album is

In stunning news coming out of Milwaukee, lead singer Johnny Maplewood of local honky tonk band, Honky Tonkitis, announced Sunday that he was immediately replacing the other members of his band with animatronic bears.

"This has been a long time coming," Maplewood declared. "I'm fed up about

Hey yo! If you missed last night in Stevens Point with Honky Tonkitis and MadPoleCats and Nevada Newman, you can still catch us tonight at Kochanski's doing a battle of the stages (each band performs for thirty minutes on one stage before handing it off to the other band at the other stage, all night long), starting at 9pm. This is how we

For those of you who haven't ever seen Madison's own MadPoleCats perform, you're in for a treat this weekend if you stop by one of the two shows we'll be playing with them. These guys are a truly strange mix of original and cover music that will get you tapping your feet and--dare we say it--even dancing! Valentine's Day eve we'll be playing with them in

Quick update. The recording of the first eleven tracks has moved past the bed tracks (drums, bass, and scratch vocals and guitars and accordion, basically). Lead and backing vocals have been added, along with accordion. Some experimentation with

Skeets McDonald is one of those lesser-known honky tonk masters. But he's one in a short list of artists who had a long track record of releases that never sucked. He stayed honky tonk from beginning to end, with a little rockabilly mixed in

There's a great live Willie Nelson from the late sixties released a number of different times under different names on vinyl but basically known as Live at Panther Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. It's pre-Outlaw Willie and is just him playing live with a small combo in front of an obnoxious crowd and it's

Local group Honky Tonkitis announced Monday that they are to appear on the upcoming Downton Abbey soundtrack.

"We're pleased and honored to have one of our songs representing the music of such an esteemed and popular BBC television show," the statement read, "We can only hope that new listeners come to enjoy and associate our music with

Connie Smith's right up there with the best female honky tonk singers like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dottie West and Tammy Wynette. She's definitely got her own distinct style. We recommend her greatest hits CD, the Essential Connie Smith, as a

Congrats to our former guitarist, Chris Conrad, who built his own midget racer and now runs it on the Salt Flats in pursuit of the record top speed. Which would you rather do? Play guitars in basements and bars or build and race your own

If you're Facebook friends with the band, you know that the band started recording our next album this past weekend. We ended up recording bed tracks for a dozen tunes. Things ran great. It still requires us to go in for one more session, since we usually record around

Ah, the truck song. A whole great genre that spun off Country and Honky Tonk. Red Simpson was one of the leaders of this movement and had a long stream of truck driver songs. It's definitely worth your while to check out

We're too poor and have too little time on our hands to create a YouTube video for this, so instead, we thought we'd just compile the list here. This is our list of Schlitz Girls Say to Honky Tonk Bands:

What is it about so many Sun Records artists that started out in Rock 'n Roll and then successfully moved on to a career in Country music? Jerry Lee Lewis is near the top of that success list, even though he torpedoed his own early success by

Local band Honky Tonkitis announced Friday that they will soon depart for a national tour.

"This is something we've been working on a long time, and it's taken a lot of coordinating with different people to make a reality," singer Johnny Maplewood announced, "but we really think that it's going to be a success and that we're going to impact a lot of

In shocking news today, local accordion player Don Turner of the group Honky Tonkitis was arrested on federal racketeering charges. FBI agents led a pre-dawn raid of Turner's small apartment, arresting Turner, four unnamed scantily-clad females and

Happy New Year one day late! The boys here in Honky Tonkitis are back, looking forward to a hangover-inducing 2014. Weehoo! Lots of good things planned for this year. We're hoping to take it as far as we can and take you along with us kicking and screaming. Grab hold and

Something tells us that this is a tune that wouldn't pass current muster on the radio. It little bit un-PC in today's world. Additionally, notice how much O'Gwynn seems to be channeling early George Jones in his

Yesterday, out of the blue, James O'Gwynn came up in our heads, so we thought we'd post another tune of his. This one precedes the twangy guitar honky tonk era, but is still a great example of the down-on-your-luck loser profile that fits the honky tonk genre. Listen to how close O'Gwynn's vocal style is to

Honky Tonkitis accordionist, Don Turner, announced Thursday that he has signed a long-term contract with Paul McCartney. In a surprising move, McCartney personally attended the contract signing alongside Turner and his now-former band.

We were sad to hear of Ray Price's passing the other day. He was one of the last living honky tonk greats with one of the sweetest voices out there. And this guy was still touring in 2013! Buddies of ours who had seen him say he still had a great set of pipes and was still hitting the notes like he was in his prime. Ray,

Local band Honky Tonkitis announced today the release of new material. Surprisingly, this was not a new CD or T-shirt or sticker, but rather a collection of scented candles.

"We wanted to go in a more ephemeral and spiritual direction," singer Johnny Maplewood said. "We want the Honky Tonkitis customer to actually feel like they are in a honky tonk while listening to our music in a home setting. Or just transforming their local bar into one with more of a honky tonk mood. A lot of that can be established just through smell. Or getting some drunk guy to sit next to you and talk drunken nonsense to you."

"I can tell you from personal experience that these scented candles really do the job, literally," guitarist Bruce Dean noted. "I haven't left my house for the last five days, my drinking's way up, my wife won't talk to me, and my job is in jeopardy. I've never felt more like I'm in a honky tonk."

The scented candles will be available in the following aromas: Pabst, urinal, cigarette butts, Johnny Walker, Regret, Loneliness, Shame and Gonorrhea.

"My personal fave is the Gonorrhea," accordion player Don Turner remarked. "Boy, does that one bring back old times. Whoo! Better to smell it than to feel it!"

The latest weapon in the fight against Asian carp doesn't look much like a weapon at all: It's the album Alcohol & Heartbreak by Honky Tonkitis. The music is blasted through underwater speakers in a 13-mile section between the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal as they meander through

Happy Thanksgiving! Nothing like a little Wanda Jackson for your turkey day! This tune reminds us of our tune, You're Making Love While I'm Making Whine. Enjoy your day. See you back here tomorrow for our

We need a rip-roariin' song to start off this Tuesday, so let's go with Jimmy and Johnny. These guys really cranked it out for a honky tonk duet. You could even say that they bordered on rockabilly. Whatever the case, they had a number of great singles and played a bunch of great tunes live on the country TV shows you can find on

Since opening for Lucky Tubb and the Modern Day Troubadours last weekend, we got to listen to his album, Damn the Luck. All we can say is GO OUT AND BUY THIS ALBUM! Just a great, great album from beginning to end. We can't say

We were talking the other day about how great James O'Gwynn was and how he had a number of songs that we thought were better than his hit, My Name Is Mud. Well, here's just one more example. Definitely a great drinking honky tonk song. Songwriters take note: this is how it's done.

Local musician Larry Gääärd, of the band Honky Tonkitis, is recovering after receiving a rare black widow spider bite Tuesday at a local food store.

"All of a sudden I felt this pinprick on my hand. I thought I got a sharp piece of the banana I was holding. Or that someone had buried a needle in my fruit. And then I saw that big black sucker, and I was like...waaaagh!" Gääärd reported.

"When I heard, of course I was very concerned," singer Johnny Maplewood commented. "I mean, those are very rare spiders. I was afraid maybe the spider was killed or badly injured. After Gääärd told me, I immediately contacted the store where the incident took place and asked them to make sure the spider was okay."

"I'd have to say, the Latrodectus is one of my favorite spiders in all of North America," drummer Kurt Weber added, "No matter what particular genus bit Gääärd, I'm sure he had it coming. That jerk's been pissing off spiders, not to mention me, ever since he joined the band. He got what he deserved."

"We're working on setting up a special fund for that particular spider," guitarist Bruce Dean noted. "I've already got three bands willing to do a benefit with us, as well as a couple bars that offered to supply their location, beer, and food. I've also gotten a number of calls from random people who just want to punch Gääärd. This is really bringing the local community together."

"I mean, hey, the females eat the heads off their partners after they mate," accordionist Don Turner enthused. "That's just sexy, no matter how you slice it. I've had a couple girlfriends like that. Rowr!"

Gääärd pointed out that he was, in fact, injured by the bite. "My hand's turned deep red around the bite, it's swollen up considerably, and there's pus weeping from the bite holes. I've been vomiting for the last couple hours and I can't stand for any length of time."

"Gääärd's always complaining about something," Maplewood concluded. "He showed me the bite mark, but I wasn't able to see anything. I mean, that guy's lumpy all over. This didn't seem like anything special. I think he's just a big baby."

Only two days till Lucky Tubb and the Modern Day Troubadours hit Milwaukee! Here's a great live vid of the band performing at an outdoor venue in Amsterdam this past summer. Just a taste of what you'll get to see when they arrive here this Saturday. Don't miss your chance to

Four days from today and counting! Your chance to catch Lucky Tubb and the Modern Day Troubadours along with Honky Tonkitis at Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall, this Saturday, November 16th. Don't argue, just

Ha ha! More Lucky Tubb for you! We'll keep pushing Lucky on you until you just give in and come see his show with us on the 16th at Kochanski's. Just give in now and surrender and show up and we'll stop bugging you. In the

Another great honky tonk tune by a female singer that kicks ass over three-quarters of the stuff that men put out. Wish we knew when this one was recorded. Based on the subject matter, probably not until

Jean Shepard gets ignored by the mainstream media, whereas someone like Patsy Cline does not, even though Jean has an incredible voice and track record of great songs. Just goes to show that people would rather focus on tragedy rather than actual talent. It's not to say Patsy Cline wasn't

Watch some of this 1965 show and try to deny these guys were talented! A live TV show that basically ran from beginning to end with very little in the way of breaks or edits. Red Sovine comes on with Why Baby Why at 3:19. Norma Jean comes on at 7:30 and plays I Don't Love You Any More. Porter performs the Bride's Bouquet at 9:52. Red Sovine comes back and performs Little Rosa at 16:25. Norma Jean returns at 20:10 to perform Foggy Mountain Top. If you watch

This is an example of a classic Country/Honky Tonk tool: put out a tune with a controversial title that ends up having a trick effect to it. That's primarily where our band chooses the title to our tunes as well. Get people to pay attention to the title and

We discovered just the other day the story that after Patsy Cline was killed in the tragic plane crash that her husband, Charlie Dick, later remarried to a woman named Jamey Ryan, who, surprisingly...sang a lot like Patsy Cline. She even sang one of the songs, Blue Christmas, in the Patsy biopic,

The Milwaukee District Attorney's office dropped multiple murder charges against local fiddle player, Larry Gääärd, after it was determined that the search warrant was incorrectly served. Gääärd plays with local group, Honky Tonkitis.

We don't know much about this song, whether Loretta wrote it herself or not, but this is just a small sample of the quality music Loretta was putting out in 1965. Here's our Tuesday sample of what makes Loretta a

Local honky tonk group Honky Tonkitis today announced that they've been tapped to record a movie soundtrack.

Drummer Kurt Weber had this statement: "We're very pleased with this announcement. Due to the late notice of having our music added to the film, we're immediately setting to work composing pieces. The entire band is reviewing

Here's the Patsy Cline tune we were talking about yesterday. It took a little bit of searching, but we found it. Again, if you ever have the money, we highly recommend getting the Patsy Cline box set. It includes 120 songs she recorded. There are other releases not covered by

Saturdays in October are going to be all about great female honky tonk singers here at Honky Tonkitis headquarters. Hands down our favorite is Patsy Cline. She just had great delivery of any tune she played. Here's a great example of how talented she was performing live. We'll try to find her live version of

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Charlie Walker embodies everything that is honky tonk music. You can never go wrong when you pick a Charlie Walker song. This guy never lost it throughout his entire career. Go check out his

We got offered a show at Kochanski's at the last minute for Thursday, Oct. 3rd. Since that's a common night for us to practice anyway, we figured, no problem. We'll be sharing the stages with Three Bad Jacks, a band out of Texas that'll be in town visiting and performing. Here's one of the many videos you can

As always, we'll tell you that 60's-era Conway Twitty was the shizz. Here's a perfect example. And, according to the anonymous commenters at YouTube, that girl in the picture (also the album cover) was Conway's daughter, fifteen years old at the

Johnny Cash Saturday! Awesome! Wonderful! Yeaaaah. Okay, Johnny Cash Saturday is going to be discontinued because we've used just above every vid of live Johnny Cash we can find. Think we're wrong? Send us the links and straighten us out! Otherwise, we're going to move to some other idea for Saturday morning broadcasts. Maybe old episodes of

The band is thinking of selling t-shirts. We have our own ideas on the design, but we thought we'd throw it open to the drinking public and see: what exactly would you want on our shirts? What images? What wording? What colors for the shirt? What size would fit you and your family? Now's your chance to stand up and be counted. That'll prevent you from complaining later that you don't like the shirts we got.

Here's something completely different. It's amazing that we live in an age where a legend such as Hank Williams can be analyzed by so many people. We're not stuck with just a few biographers writing books that compile old articles or interview people who were friends of friends. Here's a forty minute interview with Don Helms, Hank's best steel player, by a fan who

We've decided to make October the month we feature female honky tonk singers. They're no small part of honky tonk music. From Kitty Wells (who probably started it all) to Loretta Lynn to Patsy Cline to Dottie West, many female singers have had a strong impact on honky tonk music. To prime the pump, we're starting with a little tune by Alice Joy, along with

We've had complaints that some people are just not satisfied with our website. They feel that we just don't speak their language, that w'ere just not pimped-out enough for their tastes. Well, for those of you who feel that way, we offer

You can never go wrong with Johnny Paycheck. This guy's ratio of good songs over bad is so high that it's almost impossible to find a bad song. Other than George Jones, he has the best vocal delivery of just about any song he sings. Even the "talk" songs like Colorado Kool-Aid have distinction. And let's

Deke Dickerson is a guitar pickin' tour de force who travels the country playing all sorts of classic honky tonk, rockabilly, R&B, rock 'n roll, and everything in-between. He has a ton of great records as well. Check him out. This vid is a great

Fiddle player Larry Gääärd of local band Honky Tonkitis, announced Thursday that he believes the time is right for the band.

"Things are really coming together for us," Gääärd summarized. "Since joining the group in May, I've been really excited with the way things have moved. The music is really good, the performances get better and better, and the musical

Here's a great early Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two vid. Love the way these early JC vids are so distinctive. Why can't we have this kind of thing still today? Luther looks like he's either gonna crack or kill the

Nothing beats live Roger Miller. Go check out his version of "King of the Road" with Dean Martin. Or find his appearance on the Johnny Cash Show where they goof off before performing "King of the Road." This guy wrote some great, great songs and

This one isn't so much a honky tonk classic as a rockabilly classic, but still falls in the range of great tunes that get you moving, due to that great lead guitar and a driving rhythm section. About the only info we could find on Wayne Walker was info for a Mike Ness album of covers:

If you click on this link, it will take you to all of the photos that were taken at Symco Shakedown this year, including ours'. Just scroll down till you find us. Really a great job by the photographers at

We recently gave Why Baby Why a spin at our show, ready or not, so we thought we'd post George Jones' version here. We've posted a different version of this song before, but thought we'd put the original up for

Who knew Johnny Cash sang in German? Here's a few examples. Just like the Beatles did a few of their songs in German for the German-speaking market, so did Johnny. Heck, Wanda Jackson even sang a few singles in Japanese.

By the way, thanks to everyone who came out and saw us at Kochanski's last night. We'll be there again on

Drummer Kurt Weber of local band Honky Tonkitis announced today that Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun is now returning his calls.

"It just kinda came out of the blue. After all those messages I've left for him on his voice mail the past year-and-a-half, and suddenly, today, my phone rings and it's, 'Hi. It's Ryan Braun. I'm returning your call."

Now that the newest Mavericks album has been out a while and we've had time to digest it, the conclusion we've reached is that this is by far the best tune off it. This song totally grooves, something that shows through even more when they play it live. Just a hell of a great song. The Mavericks are

Honky Tonkitis would like to offer a huge thanks to Mike Rosenow and all the people who made last Saturday's Symco Shakedown such a great event. We were treated like kings at this event and had a blast performing in the Dance Hall. We were thrilled by this great gathering. Not only did we have fun playing as a band, we enjoyed the entire event. We met a

Johnny Cash Saturday. Man, this one is a doozy that we've never seen before. Johnny Cash miming along to Frankie's Man, Johnny in the 1963 movie, Hootananny Hoot. Far out. Love the way every time they show those boppin' college

"I don't know what it is. Maybe a mid-life crisis?" fiddle player Larry Gääärd jokes about his plans to change instruments.

"Seriously, though," he says, losing the smile, "I just found myself losing interest in playing the fiddle. I mean, I still love the music, I still love being a musician, I just don't know if I hold that same kind of love for the fiddle."

If you dig Charlie Walker, you're a very lucky person. This guy never put out a bum song in his life. He's got a Bear box set that pours out honky tonk from beginning to end. This guy is the real deal. If you can't afford the box set, we recommend you start off with his Greatest Honky Tonk Hits disk. For the voice, the

This Saturday, you'll find the Honky Tonkitis boys at the Symco Shakedown in Symco, Wisconsin (not far from Waupaca). We'll be playing a 7pm-9pm slot this Saturday night. Never been to the Symco Shakedown? You don't know what you're missing!

We've heard this tune for years and years now and weren't able to pin down who was singing it. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, that problem has been solved. Love this live version. James has a grade-A band in these live vids, and he's posted a bunch of them from the same show. We highly recommend you go hunt them down and watch them.

We've added MadPoleCats, a great Madison band we've had the pleasure of playing with at Kochanski's, to our link page. These guys will also be playing at Symco Shakedown with us this Saturday. Definitely give

Johnny Cash Saturday! If you've never heard the Cash album Personal File, we highly recommend it. Two CD's worth of Johnny solo, just him and his acoustic guitar. Some musicians need a band to make them great. Johnny's voice and guitar carry him right along. He would've been a great guy to see solo in concert. This is as close as you can get to that.

So last night the Honky Tonkitis Blues Boys Band decided to do an impromptu practice on-stage at Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall. Since we're playing the Symco Shakedown next week (check this thing out...it's going to be a great weekend of cars and music), and we have a two-hour set to fill, we wanted to test out a setlist. We also wanted

Here's another classic tune we've never heard before...and this was the B-side! Hard to believe. The A-side was "The Trash You Threw Away," which in our opinion, is the weaker of the two. Still, you're never gonna make any chart with a song about hangovers, no matter how well-written they are. Great guitar on this as well. And one of the best lines we've heard: "Cherry vodka and beer don't mix."

In other news, the band is locked in for playing the Symco Shakedown this August, one of the great classic car festivals of Wisconsin. Click on this link to be filled in on all the info about this great event. We'll also be representing at Kochanski's Harley Davidson anniversary late in August, and we're going to slip in a separate show there just before the anniversary hits. We've got

There's about a half dozen tunes by Leon Boulanger on YouTube, but not much info. Someone comments that he used to play fiddle for Ernest Tubb and that he also played with Faron Young's band. He also sang The Hurting Song, a tune that was put out by Faron's backing band. If anyone has any more info about Leon, please let us know.

This is one of Johnny Cash's best early songs. It's classic production by Sam Phillips, the exact kind of sound that made Elvis' early songs such a big hit. No drums, but a big, slapping bass and Johnny's vocals sitting in the mix like another instrument, rather than pushed too far out front. And that great Sun slapback delay on the vocals.

In an effort to boost interest among younger people, Honky Tonkitis hired a team of popular teenage girls to review their honky tonk website. After much research and discussion, these girls concluded that the Honky Tonkitis website is not even funny.

After Carl's early rockabilly/rock & roll career, he had an excellent later life recording country records. When we get a chance, we'll hunt up a copy of one of his later country tunes. In the meantime, this is one of his great early records. There are some great compilations of Carl's early Sun record stuff out there. Unfortunately, all of his later country stuff only seems available in big expensive box sets without any compilations of the best of it. If anyone out there has any suggestions for a comp of the later country stuff that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, we'd love to hear from you.

Our good friend Andy Kochanski is going to have Dale Watson and his band at his bar later this month. Alas, we were already booked into other things, so we will not be dueling Dale and the band, but we can always dream. Enjoy this one and then go over to Kochanski's home page to find out more about Dale's appearance there.

Singer Johnny Maplewood responded with sadness over the decision: "This just went to trial two months ago. I had no idea they would rule so quickly over this album. Last I heard, Milli Vanilli was still waiting for the decision to come down on Girl You Know It's True. I don't know what pushed

Hands down, Loretta Lynn had the best song titles and wry lyrics of any performer in her career in honky tonk. Go back and look at a list of her song titles. They were great and really creative. This isn't one of her songs, but her delivery of this standard is great and the era is just so

Thanks again to all of you who came out to see us at the Xaverian Mission festival yesterday. We had a blast. Thank God the weather held. We recorded the show and will probably post a couple songs from the show in days to come.

We'll be playing at Kochanski's Polish Pile-Up this coming Saturday, so

We'll be throwing out our best Xaverian-style honky tonk tomorrow afternoon at the Xaverian Mission festival in Franklin. What is Xaverian-style honky tonk? The kind you can plop a Xaverian Missionary down in the middle of and make him want to tap his toe and crack a beer. They'll have plenty of that in the beer tent we're playing in, so bring the family down, buy a long line of ride tickets for the kids, and go sit back and tilt a beer while the kids are screaming on the tilt-a-whirl and Honky

At a wedding reception that turned into a reunion for current and former members of local country band Honky Tonkitis, former members were in agreement on one issue, as summed up by guitarist Chris Conrad:

We don't know much about Carol Stephenson, but this is a great track. How did they settle on the track title? "Number twenty-two? Nah that's not enough. Number one-hundred and two? Too much chance that a venereal disease figures in. Number

Last Saturday night saw us playing at the wedding reception for Jason, our former bassist. It was quite the reunion. Chris Conrad, Jason, and Tom Hansen, our former fiddle player all came and played with the band on a number of tunes. It was great to see all of these guys and catch up with them. The location was great, too. Best Place Tavern at the historic Pabst Brewery in

Johnny Cash Saturday! This is one from a 1970 Johnny Cash album called Hello, I'm Johnny Cash that we hadn't heard before. Quite a good tune. Turns out, this album has yet to be released on CD. Quite a travesty (unless you're a vinyl

We'll be playing the Xaverian Mission Festival a week from Saturday in Franklin, 3:30-6:30 pm. Free to attend, for the entire family, Honky Tonkitis in attendance. A chance to see what a real live honky tonk band sounds like in a non-threatening

Here's a great tune by a guy who keeps cranking out great tunes. From Chuck's website:

Chuck is a country western musician, singer, songwriter, who began his career in Country Music in 1972 after serving four years in the U.S. Navy, and was living for a couple months in Long Beach Ca. To Date Cusimano has written close to a thousand

Our old bass player, Jason, is getting married this weekend and we have the pleasure of playing at the reception. He and his lovely bride-to-be picked Waltz Across Texas as their first dance. We'll probably keep this one in future setlists for a

Here's the original version of Johnny's Delia's Gone. Even though this one had a great amount of impact and a great video when he re-recorded it for American Records in the 90's, we prefer this original version. It also seems like it would

Here's a little history about Jimmie Longsdon from the Courier-Journal newspaper of Monday, October 8, 2001: He was born on April 1, 1922 in Panther, KY. The son of a Methodist minister, he began singing in his father's church choir at the age of 12 and first played clarinet at school before changing to guitar. Between 1944 and 1946, he served in the Air Force and on release opened a record shop in LaGrange, KY. By 1948 he was performing locally and received a break in 1950, when he won his own 15-minute country radio show, first on WLOU but later on WINN Louisville. In October 1952, Decca Records

Bob Gallion is a lesser-known honky tonker, but man, does this guy have some great tunes and a voice built for honky tonk! Recently, his album, Out of A Honky Tonk, came up on the Honky Tonkitis jukebox and all heads turned! "Who is this guy?" was the

In stunning new coming out of Milwaukee, lead singer Johnny Maplewood of local honky tonk band Honky Tonkitis announced Sunday that he was immediately replacing the other members of his band with animatronic bears.

"This has been a long time coming," Maplewood declared. "I'm fed up about the arguments over money, venue choice,

Johnny Cash Saturday! This is one of our fave JC songs because the Carter sisters support him so brilliantly. Any version they perform this song will send chills down your back, especially the studio version. June Carter knocks her vocal part out of the

Local group Honky Tonkitis announced Monday that they are to appear on the upcoming Downton Abbey soundtrack.

"We're pleased and honored to have one of our songs representing the music of such an esteemed and popular BBC television show," the statement read, "We can only hope that new listeners come to enjoy and associate our music with this wonderful broadcast."

Red Sovine is mostly known for shmaltzy voice-over songs like Teddy Bear and Giddy-Up Go from the late 60's. What he's not as well known for are some of these great tunes he sang earlier in his career. He's got a number of them, and he's got a voice built for honky tonk. A good starter for Red Sovine's music is Juke Joint Johnny. No, we're not promoting

The Milwaukee District Attorney's office is reviewing whether to press charges against a local accordion player for the band Honky Tonkitis after a dust-up in a bar last week. Although details of the bar fight are being reviewed, what has been confirmed is that Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher John Axford was

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us last Friday night. You got to see the debut of fiddle player Larry Gard with us. We had a blast. We look forward to seeing everyone again in June, when we'll be playing a number of times. In the

Johnny Cash Saturday! Thanks to everyone who came out to Kochanski's to see us last night. We had a blast. We'll take a listen to the recordings and see if anything turned out good enough to post. Thanks to Larry Gard

Conway Twitty had a great line of honky tonk albums throughout the 60's. Then he hit 70's and the country music industry changed and he had a hit with some sentimental crap that changed the whole direction of his career. Goodbye cool honky tonk sons, hello

Here's a common example of a honky tonk feature: a song about not only how band things are, but about how they're going to get worse. Funny how you don't hear stuff like this on the radio anymore...but that's what you get when you have a genre devoted to drinking in honky tonks. That's why we love it so much.